North Korea Faults Roh and Gorbachev

By JAMES STERNGOLD, Special to The New York Times

Published: June 8, 1990

TOKYO, June 7—
North Korea indirectly lashed out at President Roh Tae Woo of South Korea today for what it said was his ''shameless, flunkyist'' meeting with President Mikhail S. Gorbachev in San Francisco on Monday. It also rebuked Moscow in milder terms for embarrassing Pyongyang by meeting with its archenemy in the United States.

The Communist Government of North Korea, which receives most of its military supplies from the Soviet Union and counts Moscow as one of its last remaining allies, has issued no official statement on the Roh-Gorbachev meeting. Just before it took place, Pyongyang warned Moscow that the meeting would be ''a serious political issue.''

Since the Soviet Union and South Korea have no diplomatic relations, the meeting was regarded as de facto recognition of the South by the Soviet Union and a diplomatic breakthrough for President Roh. Although no timetable was set, the meeting is expected to lead to full diplomatic recognition later.

Such a step would only further isolate North Korea, which has staunchly resisted even a hint of the liberalization that has swept Eastern Europe and caused Pyongyang to break relations with a number of Eastern European nations. There are no indications that the meeting was reported in North Korea.

Diplomatic Offensive

Since the Seoul Olympics in 1988, South Korea has initiated a diplomatic offensive to that has succeeded in opening relations with every Eastern-bloc country except the Soviet Union and East Germany. Seoul and Moscow opened consular offices in each other's countries late last year.

The message today purported to be an account of a radio broadcast of a statement by a pro-Pyongyang group in South Korea. It was carried by the official North Korean press agency and monitored here.

Western diplomats said the method of citing a statement by what was said to be a South Korean political group was a method the North Koreans had previously used to issue comments without putting them in the Government's name.

Particularly in this instance, it permitted the North Koreans to note their displeasure with Mr. Gorbachev without assaulting him directly, the diplomats said.

It was the first comment to come from Pyongyang on the meeting since it took place.

Roh's Message to the North

Calling President Roh ''an imperialist colonial stooge,'' the report described his trip to San Francisco as ''criminal'' and ''a disgraceful blot of flunkyist treachery.'' In perhaps a more serious accusation, the report accused Mr. Roh of ''trading gossip with foreigners.''

But the report acknowledged that President Roh's principal message had gotten through. Mr. Roh has said he was trying to use the Soviet Union to deliver a message to Pyongyang that it should engage in more serious dialogue about reunification and easing the cold-war tensions that still pervade the peninsula 37 years after the Korean War ended.

''Can there be a more shameless, flunkyist act than trying to move the North with the help of others?'' the report said. The report noted, nonetheless, what a threat that posed to Pyongyang.

President Roh's efforts are ''aimed at bringing Liberal Democracy like that of colonial South Korea to the North and denaturing the society of the North,'' the report said. ''It is nothing but a variant of the 'unification by prevailing over Communism,' which can never be realized,'' it continued.

Despite the rhetorical blast, North Korea has not taken any action so far, and diplomats said it was not clear what it could do. Tensions had already been rising between Moscow and Pyongyang because of increased criticism in the Soviet press about the personality cult around Pyongyang's leader, Kim Il Sung. The North Koreans expelled a Tass correspondent earlier.